Top 10 CNAPP Terms You Need to Know –  A Cloud Security Glossary

What is CNAPP? 

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) is an emerging category of security tools designed to secure cloud-native infrastructure and applications. Gartner Group defines CNAPP as a “unified and tightly integrated set of security and compliance capabilities, designed to protect cloud-native infrastructure and applications.”

Essentially, CNAPP is an all-in-one cloud security solution that consolidates what used to be multiple separate tools. It brings together areas like cloud configuration monitoring, workload protection, identity management, and more into one platform. This unified approach is crucial because modern cloud environments are dynamic and complex, making protecting them with interconnected tools much better.

The evolution of attacks forced security solutions to adapt and evolve making CNAPP a non-stop growing terminology. In Gartner’s 2024 Market Guide for CNAPP report it mentioned “By 2029, 60% of enterprises that do not deploy a unified CNAPP solution within their cloud architecture will lack extensive visibility into the cloud attack surface and consequently fail to achieve their desired zero-trust goals”. AccuKnox blog post, “Driving the Need for CNAPPs: Unified Risk Visibility, Vendor Consolidation, and DevSecOps”, states that the majority of cloud breaches still emerge from issues like misconfigurations or overly permissive access. Those and many more issues are seamlessly prevented with a robust CNAPP like AccuKnox’s. 

1. CWPP (Cloud Workload Protection Platform)

Provides security for workloads (VMs, containers, serverless) across multi-cloud and hybrid environments, focusing on runtime protection.

A Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) is all about securing the actual workloads running in clients’ hybrid and multi-cloud environments. These workloads could be virtual machines, containers, or serverless functions. Think of CWPP as the bodyguard of applications or services hosted in the cloud, also known as workloads. 

AccuKnox’s approach to CWPP does runtime protection by leveraging powerful kernel-level technology (eBPF and the open-source KubeArmor project) to enforce security policies inside cloud workloads​. This means even if an attacker breaches a container or VM, the CWPP can restrict what they do. For instance, preventing unauthorized file access or network calls by blocking system calls at the kernel level that are not authorized to be done by the zero trust policy. CWPP is a core piece of CNAPP that ensures cloud workloads are not only configured securely at the start but also actively defended during operation.

2. CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management) 

📌 Provides security for workloads (VMs, containers, serverless) across multi-cloud and hybrid environments, focusing on runtime protection.

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is compared to an automated security audit for cloud configuration. Its primary goal is to continuously identify and fix misconfigurations, compliance issues, and exposed secrets in cloud orchestration. The most common cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.) have countless settings and resources, and a simple mistake, such as leaving cloud storage open to the public or misconfiguring a firewall, can lead to a breach.

AccuKnox’s CSPM continuously detects misconfigurations across multi-cloud environments and even prioritizes the most critical risks​. This prioritization is fundamental because large environments might have hundreds of alerts, so knowing which misconfigurations pose the biggest threat helps teams focus on what to fix first. AccuKnox’s solution uses an agentless approach for CSPM​ meaning it can scan cloud configurations without needing to install anything within clients’ cloud workloads, making deployment easier. Beyond just finding issues, AccuKnox CSPM will also provide detailed guidance to remediate them and minimize clients’ pains. 

3. KSPM (Kubernetes Security Posture Management)

📌 Focuses on securing Kubernetes environments by monitoring misconfigurations, enforcing policies, and enhancing cluster security.

As Kubernetes has become the favorite orchestration system for cloud containers, securing Kubernetes environments is a top priority. Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM) is a specialized subset of CSPM focused on Kubernetes clusters. Kubernetes brings its own set of configurations (cluster settings, pod security policies, network policies, Role-Based Access Control, etc.), and those need continuous monitoring. A KSPM tool will check clusters for any risky configurations or security issues. 

As seen in the AccuKnox Help Documentation, KSPM provides an agentless security framework for Kubernetes, continuously assessing cluster configurations and detecting misconfigurations to prevent breaches​. One big area of focus for KSPM is Kubernetes RBAC and identities. AccuKnox’s KSPM helps answer “Who has access to this Kubernetes resource, and is that too much access?”. This is a crucial question because overly broad permission could let an attacker escalate privileges just by compromising a pod. KSPM also often checks clusters against industry benchmarks (like the CIS Kubernetes Benchmark) to ensure best practices. 

4. CIEM (Cloud Infrastrucutre Etitelement Managemnt) 

📌 Focuses on managing permissions and identities across cloud environments to enforce least-privilege access. 

With the complexity of modern cloud environments, organizations deal with thousands of users, service accounts, API keys, roles, and policies, many of which can be overly permissive or forgotten over time. Without proper control, excessive permissions create security gaps that attackers can exploit.

AccuKnox’s CIEM module (or KIEM for Kubernetes) helps security teams identify and remediate excessive entitlements by continuously analyzing permission usage. For example, it can flag unused admin rights, over-privileged service accounts, or misconfigured role assignments in AWS, Azure, or Kubernetes clusters. By integrating CIEM into CNAPP, AccuKnox helps detect privilege escalations, enforce the least privilege, and automate policy recommendations, significantly reducing identity-based security risks.

5. DLP (Personal Data Loss Prevention)

📌 Prevents sensitive data from being accessed or transmitted in an unauthorized manner within cloud environments.

DLP refers to the tools and practices that prevent sensitive data from leaving an organization, unauthorized. This could mean stopping someone from exfiltrating data, whether maliciously (like a hacker or a rogue insider) or accidentally (like an employee emailing a secret report to their email). In a cloud environment, DLP might involve scanning for sensitive information (like personally identifiable information – PII, or secrets and keys) in cloud storage, databases, or even in network traffic, and then ensuring that data isn’t exposed or sent to places it shouldn’t be.

AccuKnox’s ModelKnox AI security solution integrates DLP mechanisms tailored for AI workloads, ensuring real-time monitoring and automated prevention of PII leaks. Using LLM Guard’s AI-driven detection, ModelKnox identifies and anonymizes sensitive data, preventing unauthorized disclosure during model training, inference, and chatbot interactions. By securing AI pipelines, enforcing compliance (GDPR, HIPAA), and providing runtime visibility, AccuKnox protects organizations from AI-driven data breaches, ensuring that sensitive information is monitored, managed, and secured across all cloud workloads and machine learning models.

6. Zero Trust Enforcement

📌 A security model that assumes no implicit trust and requires continuous verification of users, devices, and applications

Zero Trust is a modern security model that assumes no user or system, whether inside or outside the network, should be inherently trusted. Unlike traditional perimeter-based security, Zero Trust continuously verifies every access request based on identity, context, and behavior. In cloud environments, this means enforcing least privilege access, micro-segmentation, and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

In the CNAPP ecosystem, Zero Trust ensures that only authorized workloads, users, and devices can interact with cloud resources. AccuKnox’s CNAPP is explicitly a Zero Trust Cloud Native Security Platform. This means it applies Zero Trust principles to all those components (CSPM, CWPP, etc). Another way to look at Zero Trust is to assume a breach. Assume that at any given time, an attacker might have gained an advantage in the environment, so it is crucial to design security as if that’s the case, limiting what that attacker can do. By adopting Zero Trust architecture, CNAPP solutions like AccuKnox help contain potential breaches by assuming all actions are malicious thus they need to be verified.

Learn more about enforcing Zero Trust for your LLM/AI Applications from our AI Security eBook featuring ModelKnox

7. IaC (Infrastructure as Code) Security

📌 Scans and secures infrastructure code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation) to prevent misconfigurations and vulnerabilities before deployment.

Nowadays, cloud infrastructure is often managed by code, using tools like Terraform, CloudFormation, or Helm charts to define what cloud resources should look like. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Security refers to ensuring that this code is secure before it creates actual cloud resources. Rather than waiting for a misconfigured cloud resource to be deployed (and then catching it with CSPM after the fact), AccuKnox’s CNAPP scans and flags the misconfiguration caught in the IaC template. It is a solution to be used in the development stage, preventing failures to go into the production stage.

AccuKnox’s solutions include IaC scanning capabilities that act on artifacts like Terraform plans or Kubernetes YAML files and compare them against best practices and compliance rules (like disallowing hard-coded credentials, enforcing encryption on resources, etc.). By integrating this into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, etc.), it can automatically fail a build or deployment if it introduces a critical security issue preventing this issue from causing major harm in production. 

8. Runtime Protection

📌 Monitors and protects running workloads from real-time threats and exploits, ensuring secure execution of applications.

The faster a response from an attack is the less damage the environment. Every second counts. Focusing on fast response, runtime protection was born. Runtime Protection in the context of CNAPP refers to safeguarding applications and infrastructure while they are running in real-time. This is complementary to preventative checks like CSPM or IaC scanning. No matter how well configuration is done at runtime, there is always the need to be prepared for threats that bypass preventative measures, such as zero-day exploits or insider misuse. Runtime protection entails continuous monitoring of systems for suspicious activity, and the capability to stop or contain attacks as they happen.

AccuKnox’s CNAPP emphasizes runtime security heavily. This means if an attacker manages to trigger a vulnerability in an application, runtime protection mechanisms can detect the exploit attempt (say, a buffer overflow leading to a process trying to do something unusual) and intervene at the time this is happening, safeguarding the environment.

9. Threat Detection and Response

📌 Identifies and responds to security threats in real time, leveraging behavioral analysis and threat intelligence.

Cloud environments generate an enormous amount of data (logs, events, network traffic) and hidden in that data may be signs of a security threat. Threat Detection and Response in a CNAPP context means continuously analyzing the behavior of cloud workloads and infrastructure to detect attacks or anomalous patterns, and then responding to them (either automatically or by alerting the right team) in real-time. It’s often analogous to concepts like CDR (Cloud Detection and Response) or CWP (Cloud Workload Protection) with an emphasis on detection.

AccuKnox’s platform provides real-time Cloud Detection and Response (CDR), described as real-time threat detection, incident response, and security event monitoring for cloud environments​. This means the system is continuously watching telemetry from the cloud (like CloudTrail logs, Kubernetes audit logs, process activities, etc.) and comparing against known attack patterns (mapping to frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK) or learned normal behavior. 

10. Compliance Automation

📌 Ensures cloud resources meet industry standards (e.g., HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR) through automated checks and remediation.

In cloud security, staying compliant with industry and regulatory standards is a massive task. Compliance Automation is about using tools to automatically enforce and validate compliance requirements within cloud environments, rather than doing periodic manual audits. Given framew*orks like CIS Benchmarks, NIST, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, etc., organizations have a long checklist of controls to implement. A CNAPP with compliance automation will continuously check the environment against these controls and even apply fixes or guide remediation to ensure compliance regulations are applied.

Takeaway

As cloud adoption and threats both accelerate, having a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform is becoming essential. The top 10 terms we discussed are not just buzzwords, together, they formulate a holistic approach to cloud security. Embracing a CNAPP solution like AccuKnox’s means equipping an organization with an integrated, zero-trust aligned defense mechanism capable of safeguarding from cloud configurations to workloads and data. By understanding these concepts and tools, security professionals and architects can better protect their cloud environments and sleep a little easier knowing that a comprehensive shield, from build to runtime, is in place.

You can protect your workloads and achieve runtime security using AccuKnox. AccuKnox CNAPP secures your Kubernetes and other cloud workloads using Kernel Native Primitives such as AppArmor, SELinux, and eBPF. Reach out to us for additional guidance in planning your cloud security program.